Investable cryptocurrency holdings will be powered by BlockVault Inc., a new subsidiary that provides institutional-grade custodial and investment services for blockchain assets

TORONTO, Sept. 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Goldmoney Inc. (TSX:XAU) (“Goldmoney”) (the “Company”), a precious metal financial service and technology company, today unveiled the addition of vaulted Bitcoin and Ethereum as secure and fully-reserved offline investable assets within the Goldmoney® Holding, a major enhancement that allows qualified clients to buy, sell, and exchange cryptocurrencies with nine global currencies as well as gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion. With today’s launch, Goldmoney becomes the world’s first publicly traded and regulated financial service to offer insurable, auditable, and Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) compliant exposure to cryptocurrencies.

For over 15 years, Goldmoney has been the market leader and original innovator providing direct online access to securely vaulted and insured precious metals. As the market for blockchain assets continues to grow, Goldmoney clients have approached the Company seeking ultra-secure and financially transparent solution for custody of blockchain assets, where an institutional-quality solution still does not exist in the digital asset marketplace. As a result of many months of engineering and product development to meet client demand, the Company is pleased to offer the following services and innovations for eligible Goldmoney Holding owners:

Buying and selling of digital assets that are safely secured in vaulted cold storage. Cryptocurrency offerings currently include Bitcoin and Ethereum; additional leading digital assets will be added over time.

Funding of Goldmoney Holdings with 50 types of cryptocurrency, enabling wallet holders to sell a variety of cryptocurrencies and fund their Goldmoney Holding with fiat currency to access precious metals and other Goldmoney service offerings.

Will seek the establishment of peer-to-peer (“P2P”) lending capabilities on digital assets in partnership with Lend and Borrow Trust, allowing owners of Bitcoin and other assets to safely borrow against their positions.

ColdBlocksTM by BlockVault to be launched by year end: Cryptographic innovation for the reification of blockchain cryptocurrencies into institutional-grade investable assets

Trillions of dollars in managed institutional money cannot currently be invested in public blockchain assets such as Bitcoin due to a lack of custodial transparency, institutional-grade insurance, AML standards for chain of integrity, and auditability under IFRS or GAAP accounting standards. Other issues such as counterparty risk in settlement and custody and regulatory compliance also preclude qualified custodians and regulated institutions from participating in the space. ColdBlocks by BlockVault endeavours to solve these industry constraints.

Like London Bullion Market Association (“LBMA”)-approved precious metal bullion, ColdBlocks are prefilled units of cryptocurrency that, through a novel cryptographic method and a physical security aspect, are insurable and auditable as vaulted-custodial assets at any LBMA-eligible vault location around the world that currently secures precious metals. ColdBlocks can be created using any SHA-256 cryptocurrency and have other features that ensure the chain of integrity for the underlying cryptocurrency, knowing precisely where and when each unit was mined and ensuring the cryptocurrency value is never commingled with those belonging to other clients. Through Goldmoney’s experience and expertise in dealing and vaulting precious metals with analogous requirements and standards, the Company’s new BlockVault subsidiary is well positioned to deliver such solutions.

Due in part to the market opportunity, BlockVault will offer ColdBlocks cryptocurrency vaulting and dealing as a B2B API offering. Additionally, a sales team of financial services industry professionals will be hired in the Company’s Toronto office to build the new business line by offering these services to regulated financial service providers, brokerage firms, investment managers, and high-net-worth individuals.

“While institutional markets wait for a bitcoin ETF or other inefficiently-securitized financial structures, we’ve applied our first-principles approach to lowering counterparty risk and increasing accessibility in precious metals to develop a novel solution for secure and insured ownership of blockchain assets,” said Goldmoney CSO Josh Crumb, inventor of the ColdBlocks standard. “With today’s launch of digital asset dealing and cold storage custody, Goldmoney becomes one of the first publicly traded financial service companies to offer custody services for blockchain assets and one of the only market providers globally with fully transparent and audited Company financials; assurance of one-for-one backing of offline cold storage; and best-in-class regulatory oversight, including know-your-customer (“KYC”) AML policies. With nearly $2 billion in client assets and more than 1 million user signups, Goldmoney has immediately established itself as one of the largest and most well-capitalized providers in the digital asset and cryptocurrency sector.”

“As the market for Blockchain assets and cryptocurrencies has transitioned from its original premise of powering payments and remittances with a decentralized proof-of-work token to becoming a nascent speculative asset class, it has been perplexing to watch multiple technology companies serve as custodians for these assets – often safeguarding billions of dollars of wealth – while providing nearly zero accountability, transparency, or compliance with what are the most basic standards in the financial services industry,” said Goldmoney CEO Roy Sebag. “For example, not one of the five leading cryptocurrency custodians publishes an annual or quarterly audit, which has undoubtedly prevented most institutional investors from participating in the cryptocurrency space. The idea for ColdBlocks came about when one of our leading institutional investors asked us to devise a way for regulated hedge funds to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, while providing the regulatory assurances mandated by their prospectus offering under securities-law. We have invested significantly in R&D over the last few months and used our experience and relationships in cryptography, vaulting of physical assets, insurance, financial regulation, and investment management best practices to develop our first-to-market solution.”

“While we’re excited to launch these new services and solve these persistent challenges for our clients, we feel it’s important to remind investors that there are still significant risks when investing in this nascent asset class. Blockchain assets can likely never achieve the store of value, low volatility, and duration risk-free properties of precious metals, as precious metals possess these three related properties physically in nature – not due to economic theory or network effects in markets. While cryptocurrencies likely possess revolutionary new forms of information utility and transactability, and may be an important asset class for speculation, diversification, hedging the risks and unintended consequences of extreme-centralization in markets, we remain cognizant of the risk that any or all of these assets may ultimately lose all of their value or be deemed illegal by local governments or regulators. It is with this view in mind that we proceed cautiously yet optimistically on behalf of our stakeholders, but continue to value capital preservation over short-term gains when inappropriately risk-adjusted,” added Crumb and Sebag in a joint message to clients and shareholders.

About Goldmoney Inc.

Goldmoney Inc., a financial service company traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX:XAU), is a global leader in precious metal investment services and the world’s largest precious metals payment network. Safeguarding nearly $2 billion in assets for clients located in more than 150 countries, Goldmoney is focused on a singular mission to make precious metals-backed savings accessible to all. Powered by Goldmoney’s patented technology, the Goldmoney® Holding is an online account that enables clients to invest, earn, or spend gold, silver, platinum, palladium and cryptocurrencies that are securely stored in insured vaults in seven countries. All bullion assets are fully allocated and physically redeemable property. Goldmoney Wealth Limited is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) as a Money Services Business. Goldmoney Network is a reporting entity to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), and is registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in the U.S. For more information about Goldmoney, visit goldmoney.com.

This news release contains or refers to certain forward-looking information. Forward-looking information can often be identified by forward-looking words such as “anticipate”, “believe”, “expect”, “plan”, “intend”, “estimate”, “may”, “potential” and “will” or similar words suggesting future outcomes, or other expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. All information other than information regarding historical fact, which addresses activities, events or developments that the Goldmoney Inc. (the “Company”) believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, is forward looking information. Forward-looking information does not constitute historical fact but reflects the current expectations the Company regarding future results or events based on information that is currently available. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking information will not occur. Such forward-looking information in this release speak only as of the date hereof.

Forward-looking information in this release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: service times for transactions on the Goldmoney network; growth of the Company’s business, expected results of operations, and the market for the Company’s products and services and competitive conditions. This forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time it was made, and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others: the Company’s history of operating losses; future capital needs and uncertainty of additional financing; fluctuations in the market price of the Company’s common shares; the effect of government regulation and compliance on the Company and the industry; legal and regulatory change and uncertainty; jurisdictional factors associated with international operations; foreign restrictions on the Company’s operations; product development and rapid technological change; dependence on technical infrastructure; protection of intellectual property; use and storage of personal information and compliance with privacy laws; network security risks; risk of system failure or inadequacy; the Company’s ability to manage rapid growth; competition; effectiveness of the Company’s risk management and internal controls; use of the Company’s services for improper or illegal purposes; uninsured and underinsured losses; theft & risk of physical harm to personnel; precious metal trading risks; and volatility of precious metals prices & public interest in precious metals investment; and those risks set out in the Company’s most recently filed annual information form, available on SEDAR. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, except as required by law.

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